


Chemicals

by lazarus_girl



Category: Skins (UK)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-11-02
Updated: 2010-11-02
Packaged: 2017-12-06 09:58:29
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,122
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/734385
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lazarus_girl/pseuds/lazarus_girl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>“No one told her success was a drug too.”</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	Chemicals

**Author's Note:**

  * For [musicffyou](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=musicffyou).



> AU. Future fic. Songfic. Naomi is the lead singer in a band. Lyrics and inspiration from 'Meds' by Placebo.
> 
> Originally posted at my Livejournal. Unbeta'd, so all mistakes are my own.

_I was alone,_  
 _Falling free,_  
 _Trying my best not to forget_  
 _What happened to us,_  
 _What happened to me,_  
 _What happened as I let it slip._

Love, that’s what she always feels on stage. Pure, unadulterated love. She’s Cherie Currie, Courtney Love, Brody Dalle and Joan Jett all rolled into one and more. She’s the platinum blonde with the swagger of Jagger; the girl they all want to be or want to be with. Up here, guitar in hand, looking down on them all, hundreds of them – drenched in sweat, pressed together like sardines in this dingy club – she’s the Second Coming. It’s the greatest thrill, the best high; feeding off their desire, their energy and their constant need for more. When they breathe, she breathes. It’s what keeps her alive. It’s what makes everything in between worth it.

No one told her success was a drug too. No one told her it was just as addictive.

It’ll be a while until she crashes, but right now, she’s Icarus, sailing up close to the sun, not caring about her delicate wings. With the rest of the band, her boys – her oldest friends, (James) Cook, Freddie and JJ – behind her she’ll be fine. They make the sound fuller, make it harder and make it real. Though they always fade into the background thanks to the press, they make her strong, they hold her up. They’ll be there when she falls this time. They always are. She’d be lost without them, and they without her. The boundaries were set long ago, good-looking and talented yes, with their own fair share of the groupie pie too, but when it comes down to it; she’s the star not them. They’ll argue about that, in time, she’s sure of it.

Inside, she’s a mess, but on the outside, she’s flawless. She’s perfection. She’s on fire tonight and they’re storming their way through the last song of the night, the final minutes of their encore. This track’s, unlike the rest of the material they’ve played tonight, and yet, the audience are eating it up, surging forward in time with them, like puppets on strings. They’ve all raised their game, pulled out the stops, since it’s a homecoming gig, playing to a sold out crowd, on the eve of their first US tour. Now, the world really is watching, and the sea of faces she looks out at tonight will just get bigger and bigger with each passing day; until she can’t make them out at all; they’ll pull her down, they’ll swallow her whole.

For now, she’s bigger and brighter. She won’t let herself drown.

Her voice is strong, she’s never played better. She’s good, she’s always known it. Always known that the years of playing tiny venues, humping around their own gear, driving for miles, sleeping in their vans or their cars just to save money they didn’t really have to start with. This is what they’ve worked for. This is what she’s dreamed of all her life. Except now, it’s not a dream. Now she can reach out and touch it. It’s better than she ever imagined. Her life’s become a whirlwind of meetings, photoshoots and shows, each one bigger than the next. Each one, their manager said, would be the one to make them famous; make them number one, put their faces on the cover of every magazine and make them the word on the lips of every person in the country.

Two managers and four guitars later, here they are and here she is: a household name at twenty-one.

She’s tired of seeing her face staring out from every billboard, bus stop and tabloid. What used to be exciting has already become boring, like day after day of being styled to within an inch of her life with the dark smoky eyes that become her trademark. Just like the skinny jeans, vests and Converse. It’s all adhered to, everywhere she goes, by every single one of the primped and neat little fashionistas in heels, who dress her up in acid washed this and distressed that. The clothes haven’t changed a great deal since the band started, but the price labels have, and now the jeans are made of leather instead of denim.

All the girls that follow the band dress in the same way, like tiny clones. Robots. Sometimes, it makes her feel proud, like she’s a real icon, but most of the time, it terrifies her, especially en masse. They think they know her, but no one really does. To them, she’s the fearless, charismatic lead singer of The Young and the Damned, Suzy Gold. Just like everything else, it’s a clever construction and the press eat it up – the marriage of her middle name and her mother’s maiden name. No decent band would ever be fronted by the namesake of a supermodel. It used to be something fun, an in-joke between her and the boys, but now, it’s a mask and it’s a crutch. It’s a way of surviving. The more people know Suzy, the less they know about Naomi and she’s fine with that.

If that’s her rule, then there’s one person that’s the exception to it. One person knows that girl, and she’s the only one who’s allowed to call her by her real name.

Catching sight of the tattoo on her wrist – Elizabeth, in elegant script – it makes her remember. Effy. Her Effy. The one who’s been with them since it all started. It’s right that she’s here. It’s right that Effy witness them at their best; witness _her_ at her best, because she made it happen, and every word she’s singing – with a passion she’s lacked for months – are because of her, are for her. It’s a love letter to her, albeit a bittersweet one. Like always, she finds Effy easily amongst the crowd and begins to sing to her instead of everyone else. There’s always a split-second where she fears that one day, she’ll look out and there will be no-one there who’s familiar, who loves and cares for her as deeply as Effy does. Like always, her magnetic blue eyes watch on with pride and admiration rather than adulation and lust. One day, it’ll all be gone and each day is one day closer.

_How it mattered to us,_  
 _How it mattered to me,_  
 _And the consequences._

They were nothing but kids when the band started. Fifteen and determined they’d take on the world one song at a time. The boys had already found each other by the time she arrived, responding to the tiny advert in their school newspaper. Girls didn’t front proper bands or so Cook, Freddie and JJ thought. Of course, she proved them wrong the second she plugged in her amp and started to sing. No sappy, pathetic cover versions for her, she played what she’d written, and they were stunned into silence. The quietest of all was Effy Stonem. Their first official groupie, the headmaster’s daughter and a prefect to boot who ended up watching them practice because they borrowed the school’s PA equipment. Mr Stonem didn’t trust the boys one bit. That all changed when she came along though, one bat of her mascara-laden lashes and Effy was a goner. Mr Stonem never hung around again. Effy did though, her prefect’s badge glinting on her tie whilst she sat there on a chair opposite the stage with her shirt hanging out and her too short skirt – barely longer than the shirt– miles away from the neat, authoritative girl everyone else saw for the rest of the day.

It’s her earliest memory of Effy, and her best one. The contrast always got her. She liked that Effy had it in her to be a bit wild.

The boys embraced her without question and they never even blinked when their relationship grew into something else. There was no fuss, no great Damascus revelation. The fact that she’d bagged herself the headmaster’s daughter, the school ice queen, was more newsworthy than the fact they were both girls. Even that became insignificant eventually, because Effy wasn’t just anything to her, she was everything.

For as long as she could remember, she’d always liked girls, she was attracted to them, and she wanted to sleep with them. Boys, she’d already discovered, made better friends, and did nothing for her. She didn’t swoon at floppy-haired actors and boybands. The only men she liked were in actual bands, and her attraction was purely down to their skill as a musician, rather than anything else they might be famous for, holing herself up in her roof for hours, learning riffs till her fingers bled and mimicking their moves. She could be Roger Daltrey, Jimi Hendrix, and Johnny Rotten one day and Ian Curtis, Jim Morrison or Kurt Cobain the next. She’d stand right at the front, just like them, rather than stand still and look pretty at the back. Women, however, were a different thing altogether. She worshipped Debbie Harry and Gwen Stefani, devoured anything and everything she could get her hands on, no matter who sang it, as long as the voice was female – 10,000 Maniacs, The Cranberries, Sleeper, Garbage, The Pretenders and everything in between. Soon, her bedroom looked more like a record shop than somewhere to sleep.

She’d be just as famous, just as adored. They’d worship her. It wasn’t a case of if they became famous but when.

They were hungry for it, practising for hours after school, rushing their homework in the mornings or sneakily during registration, when they made it to school at all. She remembers them all bunking off school, taking shortcuts during cross country to smoke fags; weaving down Bristol high street, drunk, singing at the top of their lungs; getting stoned and drunk on Brandon Hill whilst she and Cook wrote songs that were the greatest thing everyone else had ever heard, for all of five minutes. Effy was always next to her, within reach, and sometimes they’d just lie together, hands entwined as they looked up at the sky as she threw out lyrics and Cook tested out riffs.

None of mattered beyond the music. It was their ticket out of Bristol, a fast-track to adult life and the real world.

If she knew the damage it would’ve caused, what it would ultimately cost, then she would’ve stayed playing in the school hall with borrowed equipment to a handful of people or mates parties, paid in beer rather than money. Then, they played for the love of it, rather than obligation. Tonight is the first time it’s felt like anything close to those early days, and it shows on Cook and Freddie’s faces whenever she’s caught their eye between songs or listened to their onstage banter. All the flair is back in their riffs and solos – her lead, Cook’s rhythm and Freddie’s bass – and they’re not alone in it. JJ feels it too. The showboating is back in his drumming, full of the extra stick tricks, trills and rolls he used to practice over and over, until they got sick of him and walked out for a cigarette. He was right to do it though, right to tell them that one day they’d be appreciated. It was all leading to this.

Sometimes she wishes they’d never scraped the money together to make demos – her idea, to begin with at least – or that people had bootlegged their gigs and it’d been heard by some posh, bespectacled man in a suit from a record company on the hunt for something fresh. When they sat in his office in London – their first trip out of Bristol – the building tall and imposing, full of glass and greed, signing their lives away at seventeen, it was the tipping point, the origin of all her mistakes.

The night of the showcase that won them the deal, Effy did her make-up, like always, but the added extra eyeliner, heavy mascara and metallic eye shadow on a whim, to make her look like a rockstar. It’s stuck ever since, and she can’t bear to change it, because it means she’s giving something else away and there are only fragments of her left.

She has a reputation now, one that takes maintenance: predatory and powerful. The press like to think that Suzy Gold is a heartbreaker, but Naomi Campbell left a pretty big trail of destruction in her wake too. A fast mouth, a sharp wit, a well-timed wink and just the right amount of sway in her in hips when she walked down the corridor saw to that. Everyone got to look, but back then, only Effy got to touch. It was ridiculously pure when she thinks of it, so childishly innocent compared to everything that’s followed. Yes, their love was pure, in that sickeningly sweet way that first love always is. The kind of love she thought only existed in films, but never actually happened. And yet, she found herself holding Effy’s hand at every opportunity, writing songs in her honour, and serenading her, rather shyly, whenever Effy asked to hear them.

It began with drunken kisses at parties – where drunkenness occurred on two sips of cheap vodka – but their first, proper kiss happened, unexpectedly, one afternoon before they played a real club gig. It took her by surprise, the way Effy just leant back and kissed her whilst she attempted to teach her the basics of guitar. They only played five songs – two of which were covers – before their ancient amps gave out, but her anger and frustration only lasted until she got into the mangers office, which doubled as her dressing room, entirely forgotten when Effy kissed her again. They were both hyped up, buzzing on adrenaline, and the cautiousness Effy had shown earlier in the day had gone completely, and the dark lipstick she’d so meticulously applied was wiped off within seconds as they gave into it and kissed each other, greedily, with a passion she’d never felt before … or since.

Their plan to take things slowly lasted for all of two hours. They found each other again during an impromptu celebration at Cook’s. With half the school and half the street invited, it was easy to disappear after the first hour. One moment, they were stumbling up the stairs, beers in hand, and the next, she’d pressed Effy against the nearest door, kissing her fiercely. Then, they were on the other side of it, pulling off clothes with dulled reflexes between sloppy mistimed kisses, and she was grabbing and stroking at skin she’d dreamt of touching. Just as quickly, she found herself pinned underneath Effy, with the last of their clothes gone. Their hands roamed, and things seemed to slow as they kissed deeper, and she tasted cigarettes and mint – something she’ll always associate with Effy. She watched, eyes wide, as the girl she once thought to be reserved and shy, disappear between her thighs without so much as a moment’s pause.

It feels like seconds ago and lifetimes ago.

_And the sex and the drugs and the complications._  
 _And the sex and the drugs and the complications._  
 _And the sex and the drugs and the complications._  
 _And the sex and the drugs and the complications._

The boys harmonise with her, and they’re winding up, frenetic, matching the crowd and the surfing bodies, undulating over the top of them, reaching out to touch them. Instead of the pride she should feel at what they’ve achieved and what they’ll do, she’s angry, angry at herself for what she’s done, for what she’s destroyed. She can’t help but think that those memories are tainted now. The golden halo that surrounded those early years when Effy rarely left her side and they spent every night together, their honeymoon period – when she was the band’s fifth member, and went nuts with them every time their single got played on Star Radio and they turned on every single one they owned to listen – is tarnished, not beyond repair perhaps, but there are things that can’t be undone; things she’s said and choices she’s made that can’t be taken back.

Most people can hide their secrets, write them off, scratch them out and bury them away in the deepest, darkest part of the mind, never to be revisited unless they want to open old wounds, but her secrets are public knowledge, part of salacious headlines, splashed across newspapers and magazines for all too see. Rumours have always dogged them, right from the very beginning. She was a target from the off, being the only girl in the band, and the fact she was so close to Cook and the boys didn’t help either. They didn’t think it could be possible for her to be the frontwoman without having slept with one or all of them at some point. How wrong they were. She never hid her sexuality, but she never shouted about it from the rooftops either, so once they found out she liked to sleep with women, it was just another in. Something else they could attack her with beyond her looks and her talent. Though, as they went on, and she became more careless, the gossip became a lot less like gossip and a lot more like truth.

There’s no such thing as a private life. There’s no such thing as a life either.

With Effy at her side, it was easier, there was a line she knew she couldn’t cross, that they all couldn’t cross, because Effy was Bristol and Effy was home, and looked after them all. She’d cut them down before their egos got too big or they did anything stupid. She knew them before all the money started flowing in and people promised them the world. Most of the time, they delivered on it too. Yes men, they’re called, all sharp suits and perfect teeth. Her naïve self thought they were just nice, and they actually believed in their music. They did, but only because they could already see the pound signs hovering above their heads.

The parties, the big hotel rooms with the flat screen TVs and the expensive room service were suddenly every day and nothing special. Meeting people she idolised became normal ordinary – even if she did secretly scream her head off in the bathroom of an upmarket hotel after meeting Debbie Harry. It was like living someone else’s life. She could treat Effy like a princess, like a Queen. Like she’d always wanted. Everyone loved her, and the band’s new manager, Bryan – someone finally on their wavelength, a real music lover, a proper musician, rather than a corporate moron – took her on as his unofficial assistant. For a while, it was perfect and nothing could possibly get in the way, except, real life, back home, miles from where they were.

Back then, the realities of all this were the furthest thing from her mind. It never occurred to her to ask if Effy wanted to come with her half way across the world whilst they chased their dream. It was just natural, obvious. It’s selfish, she can see that now. Thinking and questions would come later, much later, like when she’s alone at night, staring at the ceiling, strung out, in yet another hotel room somewhere other than home. She’d see the world, they said, but most of time, all she does is see yet another venue, hotel and airport. Aside from the language changes and the weather, they’ve very much the same. But, to her, a starry-eyed, stupid girl of eighteen, it was an easy sell. They used to take everything offered them, gladly, without question, not giving any thought to who was paying for it all.

Them, as it turned out.

Now, she can see it of course, with the gift of hindsight that she and Effy and their teenage bliss weren’t meant to last. Maybe she’d known that all along. The break, when it came, though inevitable, was still just as painful. Effy had grown bored of sitting around and waiting for her whilst they recorded vocals, did videos and soundchecks. They’d gone from spending every minute of the day together, to half-an-hour at most. When they did sleep together, it was more about getting each other off than being with each other. Her mind was somewhere else. Too many people wanted too much of her, and Effy had somehow, some time, gone right to the back of the queue without her notice.

Their first and last argument ended with Effy telling her she was tired of being her babysitter, and wanted her own life. A normal life. She wanted to be at home with her family – who she’d always missed – to finish her A-levels and go to university. In the heat of the moment, she’d told Effy that she sounded just like her father and she was wasting her time, because soon they’d be in Japan and it’d be better than Germany – Effy corrected her, because the band were in Sweden at the time, not Germany. That little geographic mistake just gave her more ammunition, was just another signal that things were falling apart. More screaming, shouting, and some crying followed, where she begged and pleaded with Effy not to leave and to change her mind. She didn’t, and left Sweden on the first available flight, pre-booked and paid for by her father. The fact Effy planned it stung at the time, because it made her realise how incredibly unhappy she must have been, without anyone noticing at all.

They tried for a while, to keep in touch by phone and email, running up huge bills and writing page after page to each other, because after a few days break, Effy regretted her decision, and they couldn’t bear to be apart. She remembers them both in tears as she clung onto her phone, hugging her hotel pillow instead of Effy, wishing she’d tried harder instead of just letting her go. In the end, it didn’t matter how much they loved each other, because they couldn’t make their lives fit together as they once had. She couldn’t talk when Effy could, and then, later, when their schedules became more hectic – Effy had deadlines, exams, essays and new friends to impress – the phone calls barely lasted ten minutes, and an email was a couple of lines. They’d learned to live without each other, but never officially split up.

That’s when everything started to go wrong.

Loneliness seems rather an empty excuse, but it’s also an honest one. She grew tired of listening to the boys talk about their conquests – most of whom were their burgeoning fanbase – without Effy there, she was lonely, and there were plenty of girls who showed interest in her, and it became evermore difficult to say no to them, and all too easy to say yes. They were never the same, these impostor girls. They’d look the same, but she’d never feel the same with them. Night after night, she’d prop up the bar, and wait, purposefully seeking out all the dark-haired, blue-eyed girls, bedding them, one by one, in the hope that if she did it for long enough, eventually, she’d find the real thing. Nowhere was off limits: bathrooms (Jaye, a stylist, during some magazine party); hotel floors (Lucy, leggy, raven-haired, sold their merch); the back of cars (Carla, Bryan’s actual PA, on and off ); the record company storage closet (Erin, a pretty American intern in the US office) and now and again, she’d bring groupies back to her room, and show off; racking up the room service bill before screwing them, just because she could, and no one told her she couldn’t.

She was practised now, of course, in the art of seduction, and these sweet little doe-eyed girls and their timid kisses weren’t enough for her. She loved the power and the risk of course, but she wanted more. She needed more, and she found it.

It made the pain of losing Effy disappear completely, but in the process she knows she’s lost too much of herself.

Not so long ago, she could have gotten through a gig without anything more than a kiss for luck and a group hug with the boys, with everyone in the huddle for their secret handshake. In those days, the most risqué thing she did was smoke cigarettes and pass round some cheap vodka stolen from someone’s dad’s drinks cabinet. A few years down the line – after she’d smoked her fair share of weed and became closely acquainted with Jack Daniels – they were doing lines of coke in a bathroom, pre-gig. No one so much as blinked, because everyone else she knew was standing right next to her, doing exactly the same thing.

It's funny, there's a sliding scale that she never realised existed. Never knew how many steps she was taking on that journey, because that required her to think, and thinking stopped round about the time she left Naomi behind and became Suzy. It makes it easier to think that Suzy’s done all these things. It’s a blurry distinction; a dangling thread, but it’s one that gets her through, because it makes all of this easier to deal with. Makes the weight lighter to carry.

Secretly, everyone here is waiting for her to break. They’re waiting for some dramatic turn; making her Morrison, Joplin or Cobain. It’d make good copy. It’s ghoulish, their thirsty pursuit of her, but she still has time to be better and prove them all wrong.

The song dies out, and for a second, all she can hear is her heart, pounding away as she looks at Effy, watching for any reaction. Then, it feels like every camera in the place takes a picture at once, and the crowd begins to applaud, stamping their feet and whistling louder than they’ve been all night, and she can’t but smile. She steps back toward the microphone but she can’t think of anything to say, not that they’d hear a word anyway. When she shrugs, and claps back at them – a tiny sound compared to them – they just cheer louder, chanting their names and waving their banners. All she can do is stand there and look, feeling the adrenaline rush through her as her eyes begin to well up. She’s determined to take it all in, to remember this moment, every single detail of it, because she knows it’s something rare, important and beautiful – a real landmark that she can look back on with fondness instead disappointment. Her feelings just intensify, when she looks over at Freddie, and he’s stood there, bass in hand, shaking his hand in disbelief. She glances to her right, and sees JJ, out from behind his drums, he’s tossed his drenched towel into the crowd, and leant down to give his drumsticks to some kids in the first few rows.

Cook grabs her then, turning her away from them, squeezing her tight. He’s hot and sweaty, but she doesn’t care, because he’ll know exactly how she’s feeling. He says something she doesn’t catch – but sounds a lot like brilliant and amazing said at the same time – before she’s spun round again, there in the middle of them all. The Fantastic Four, Bryan calls them, and she sees him standing in the wings, in his check shirt and thick black glasses, clapping like a proud surrogate parent. When he gives a subtle nod of his head, she feels like they’ve finally lived up to that moniker. They all link arms, bowing, Beatle-esque, before mouthing thank yous, blowing air kisses and running back and forth across the stage, high-fiving and touching the hands they can reach.

When she stands up, ready to go off, she can’t see Effy anymore.

She’s quiet as they make their way back to the tour bus – there’s no time for dressing rooms and stopping over, their flight to New York leaves in less than two hours, and Bryan said they’d rest later. There’s lots of phones going off, back-slapping and congratulating going on, but she’s not really paying attention. All she can think about is the fact that Effy came. After all these years, Effy still came to see them. That had to mean something. She plays along smiling as she sips on her water, walking beside Freddie, listening to him say how amazing everything is, and how America is just what they need. Cook and JJ are miles ahead of them, screaming like madmen. Still buzzing, JJ leaps on Cook’s back, and he carries him the rest of the way. Bryan, as ever, leads the group, and she attempts to clean herself up, with a towel. With no time to discard it, she leaves it, hanging round her neck and Freddie smiles at it.

It’s a bit of shock when the fire doors open, and November hits, in all its crispness, all at once. She feels her flesh goosepimple, but instead of shuddering against it, and asking for a jacket, she shrugs it off, basks in it a bit, because it’s so different to how she’s spent the last couple hours in the heat of the club under the lights. For now, she puts Effy to the back of her mind, and gets back to business. Naomi goes away, and Suzy, with her ice cool allure and seductress smile comes out. Just like she knew there would be, they’re met by camera flashes from press photographers, and a pretty big group of fans, mostly girls, all of whom are being held at bay by a mob of burly security men and some metal barriers.

Of course, there’s a bit of placating to be done for the tabloids, standing still and looking pretty with the boys, but its part of the game. In all honesty, she couldn’t give a toss about the press, but those kids, freezing to death, just for a glimpse of them, of her; they’re the ones that matter. Even at her lowest, she’s always given them time, signed things, let them take pictures, because without them, she’d still be stuck in her bedroom in Bristol, dreaming of the life she could have, and hating the one she lives.

There are days when she’d jack it all in, go home and never set foot in a recording studio again because of how miserable it makes her, but there are days like this, nights like this, that remind her why she tried so hard in the first place. She signs what she can, all too aware that it’ll never be enough time, feeling Bryan’s eyes boring in the back of her head, every few seconds in synch with the static and chatter from the security walkie talkies. She writes her stage name with a speedy flourish – it’s taken time to perfect it, and she used to practice, secretly, when she first decided to change her name at all. There’s some hugs, the odd kiss – they like it when she leaves a proper lipstick kiss behind, a girl somewhere is walking around with it as a tattoo – and a few proposals of marriage. They want a conversation, but she can barely hear, both because everyone around her is being so loud, and her ears are still ringing from the show itself.

Against the well-trodden advice Bryan gave, she leans over the barriers, so they can snap away on their phones, and she catches sight of Cook, talking animatedly into a girl’s phone. The person on the other end is screaming so loud that he has to hold it away from his ear. He laughs big, throwing his head back, and it’s nice to see a glimpse of the old Cook. She’s forgotten what he looked like. Freddie, typically, has been accosted by some girls, and he’s politely fending off their requests to touch his famed hair before security moves him along. Not to be outdone, JJ’s circulating well, flashing his arms for the ladies one minute, and chatting with some lads the next. She can tell they’re proper musicians, here for the music, well, until one of them winks at her, and JJ cocks his head, signalling for her to come over. She holds up a hand, signalling for them to wait, whilst she signs the last few things that got thrust into her direction. Distracted, she hands back the girl’s record sleeve – vinyl, she notes, with a smile – and she asks for a kiss on the cheek. She obliges, one last time, because she’s been that girl, giddy inside, gazing dreamily at someone she thought was God. The girl smiles wide, blushing furiously. Life made. When she crosses over to where JJ is, she glances back, still seeing the girl fixed to the spot, giggling with her mates before waving at her.

A very different conversation is going on here, about drumming technique and amps. When she arrives, one of them rolls up his sleeve to show off a tattoo. She remembers them immediately. Chris and Lee have followed them from the start, and Lee’s tattoo’s been a work in progress, well, since forever, they’ve even drawn bits of it, between them, when he’s turned up at other shows. There’s no lipstick kiss though, and she’s more than relieved when he indicates the final part – some lyrics from an early demo track, in amongst the bigger, intricate sleeve he’s been adding to all this time. It’s incredibly cool, she has to admit, and he gives a nod and a smile when she holds his arm aloft, and Cook comes bounding across, Freddie following a few seconds later. Bryan nearly has a heart attack when Cook asks Steve, head of security, to let the both of them through the barriers, so they can have their photo with the whole band. There’s a bit of back and forth whilst they decide and eventually relent. She chats a bit with Chris, who’s asked her to sign some things, and he’s asking her about the new equipment they’ll be taking on the tour and what it’s like to play. It’s nice, this kind of talk, because even though it’s obvious they fancy her, they don’t leap at her or anything, even if they do stand very close, and his hand is dangerously close to her arse. Still, Lee is making Steve, hover around, because he’s a bit twitchy, but she knows its nerves, rather than a Mark Chapman-in-waiting and she waves him away.

She’s a good judge of character, if nothing else.

With their photos done, Bryan taps his watch, signalling that it’s time up, and sure enough, she sees the roadies starting to bring out the last of their equipment, and Keith, their driver, climbs aboard the bus. They’re ushered away pretty quickly, and it’s then the guilt starts to creep in, because there are still people they haven’t even looked at, let alone spoken to, and she’s had that disappointment too.

On the steps of the bus, she signs one or two things more, before Steve taps her on the shoulder. She’s about to tell him to fuck off, and that she’s nearly finished – the little embellishment on the letter ‘y’ of Suzy on a girl’s ticket is all that’s left – when she follows his eye line, and Effy, steps out of the shadows nearby. Steve looks at her, half annoyed and half confused as there’s always some stragglers. He thinks she’s just another fan, and they’ve ignored her. After some quick hugs and thank yous, he guides the other little group away, saying that this girl _has_ to be the last one. An annoyed Bryan calls from the back of the bus that she’s got exactly five minutes to make it up to her.

If only he knew.

To their credit, the boys don’t say a word. They don’t give her away, but they _have_ started whispering between themselves. They’ve recognised her too. For a second, she can’t breathe let alone move, and it takes a nudge from Cook, square between her shoulder blades to make her do anything.

She walks forward, cautiously stopping a few paces short of where Effy’s standing. They’re completely alone. It’s awkward, for a few moments, because she doesn’t know where to put herself. Instead, she looks at the ground, scuffing her Converse against it, kicking at the tiny stones for before glancing up again. She’s imagined them meeting, hundreds, no, thousands of times over the years, and now she has no idea what to say, because everything’s churning round in her head; all the mistakes she’s made and how sorry she is for how she’s behaved, how badly she treated Effy. Sorry feels wholly inadequate for what’s been so long in the making. Words would never be enough, because, words never were when it comes to Effy.

They take each other in, properly, looking each other up and down. Effy looks amazing, even more beautiful than she remembers, if that’s at all possible. At fifteen, she was gorgeous by anyone’s standards, but now, at twenty-one, she’s stunning. Even by the light of a flickering street lamp, her eyes still look that same otherworldly blue. It’s then the paranoia creeps in, and she’s struck by the thought it might be some cruel dream, and she’ll wake in a moment, huddled up in her seat in the corner of the tour bus, covered in a blanket, and Effy won’t be there at all. She reaches out to her then, to test if she’s real, and she is.

The relief is immense.

To her surprise, Effy doesn’t resist her embrace, if anything, she pulls her closer, and she fights it for a moment, because she’s reminded that she’s been playing for hours, and feels horrible and sweaty, and even though Effy’s been in the same place, she still doesn’t want to touch her like this. Effy seems to sense it, and tells her not to be stupid, and squeezes her tighter, in the way that used to mean ‘I’ve missed you’ when she’d hold her on the doorstep when she’d come back from holidays in Italy with her family. She relaxes, breathing Effy in, taking her in anew, stroking Effy’s head, letting her fingers run through her soft curls. With her head on Effy’s shoulder, she just makes out her saying, quietly, that they were amazing tonight, that she was amazing.

Grudgingly, they pull back and Effy’s arms fall away, dutifully playing the role of fan, rather than anything more. They’re looking at each other again, but this time, Effy’s not looking anxious, concerned or fearful, she looks happy. It’s the kind of smile that used to make her heart stop dead and restart in the blink of an eye, because it was perfect, beautiful, and all too rare. Sure enough, the same thing happens, and when Effy gently touches her cheek, she realises immediately how much she’s missed that softness, of someone taking care of her, loving her and thinking her precious. In an instant, she feels like that sweet lovesick young girl again, and she’s not Suzy Gold, she’s Naomi Campbell, writing love songs in her bedroom on a cheap acoustic guitar with lousy tuning, desperately, hopelessly in love with Elizabeth Stonem.

She could be that girl again.

It’s a risk, she knows, but she has to try. She tilts her head towards Effy’s, tempted to close the gap between them, and kiss her to see if there really is still anything between them. Effy turns away, so she misses, and her lips brush Effy’s cheek instead, and they both laugh. Let’s try again, Effy says, barely above a whisper, and she’s about to ask what it means when Effy shushes her, placing a gentle finger on her lips. It’s soon replaced by her own mouth, brushing against hers in a soft, chaste little kiss. It’s light, barely anything, a ghost of a kiss compared to the passion they used to express, but it makes her feel exactly the same as it always did, making her heart beat that little bit faster.

Over before it really began, Effy steps back, and reaches into her pocket, and produces a notebook. It’s where Effy used to collect all the autographs of the people they met. She smiles, and takes it, patting her pocket for a pen to write with. She flips to a clean page, and there, opposite someone’s name she can’t make out, she writes, without so much as a second thought: Naomi Campbell. Underneath, in smaller neater script, she adds her phone number, and a promise to call when they land in New York.

When she hands the paper back to Effy, they hug again, and she’s the one giving thanks this time. As the bus engine turns over, exhaust spluttering, she realises there time’s up. Effy nods sadly and presses something into her palm before walking off into the night. There’s no tears and no looking back this time.

Bryan calls her name and she runs up the steps into the bus, ignoring everyone’s questions and heading straight for the back. She knows they’ll just assume she wants some time alone – like she always does at the end of gigs – and for once, she _will_ be alone. She watches through the window as Effy crosses the road, elegant, tall and confident in her heels, a million miles away from the broken-hearted girl who left her behind in Sweden all those years ago. Turning away, she sits down as the bus pulls off and they start their journey to the airport, looking down at what Effy gave her. Its a little business card, advertising a popular arts magazine called Zero – they’ve featured the band before – listing her amongst their contributing writers. She smiles at it, wondering just how many times their paths have crossed unknowingly over the years. Out of sheer habit, she flips it over, seeing a phone number and a hand written message on the other side: _Come and sing for me sometime xx_.

She couldn’t take back everything she’d done, and there was no way they could be exactly like they were before, and she couldn’t live off the memories forever either. There was a reason Effy had decided to seek her out tonight. It seemed, that for all the chances she’d taken for granted and wasted, Effy was still willing to give another. She feels a different kind of love now. The honest kind. The real kind, the one she’s been searching for ever since she lost it. This time, she’ll make it work; she’ll make it last.

_I was alone,_  
 _Falling free,_  
 _Trying my best not to forget._


End file.
